The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [100]
By Sunday morning Jean Luc had had enough of her tears and told Marianne so, directly and to the point in front of Michele. Take her to church and, before the eyes of God, make her stop crying! Or if not God, at least the monseigneur.
But it hadn’t worked. And now as they left the church and walked out into the warm Mediterranean sunshine, turning onto the boulevard d’Athens toward Canebiere, Marianne took her sister’s hand.
“Michele, you are not the only woman in the world whose husband has suddenly walked out. Nor are you the first pregnant one. Yes, you hurt and I understand. But life goes its merry way, so that is enough! We are here for you. Find a job and have your baby. Then find someone decent.”
Michele looked at her sister, then at the ground. Marianne was right, of course. But it didn’t help the hurt or the fear of being alone or the sense of emptiness. But thinking never took away tears. Only time did.
Having said what she had, Marianne stopped at a small open-air market on the Quai des Beiges to pick up a boiling chicken and some fresh vegetables for dinner. The market and the sidewalk, even at this hour, were crowded, and the sound of people and passing traffic kept the noise level high.
Marianne heard a strange little “pop” that seemed to rise above the other sounds. When she turned to ask Michele about it, she saw her sister leaning back against a counter packed high with melons, looking as if she’d been genuinely surprised by something. Then she saw a spot of bright red appear at the base of the white collar at Michele’s throat and begin to spread. At the same time she felt a presence and looked up. A tall man stood in front of her and smiled. Then something came up in his hand and again she heard the “pop.” As quickly, the tall man vanished and suddenly, it seemed as if the day was getting dark. She looked around her and saw faces. Then, curiously, everything faded.
53
* * *
BERNHARD OVEN could have flown back to Paris the same way he’d come to Marseilles, but a round-trip ticket bracketing the hours of a multiple murder was too easily traceable by the police. The Grande Vitesse TGV bullet train from Marseilles to Paris took four and three-quarter hours. Time for Oven to sit back in the first-class compartment and assess what had happened and what would come next.
Tracing Michele Kanarack to her sister’s home in Marseilles had been a simple matter of following her to the station the morning she’d left Paris and observing what tram she’d taken. Once he had a train and a destination, the Organization had done the rest. She’d been picked up as she got off the train and followed to her sister’s home in the Le Panier neighborhood. After that, she’d been carefully watched and inventory taken of those she might confide in. That information in hand, Oven had taken an Air Inter flight from Paris to Marseilles and picked up a rental car at Provence Airport. Inside its spare tire casing was a Czechoslovakian CZ .22 automatic, supplemental ammunition and a silencer.
“Bonjour. Ah, le billet, oui.”
Giving his ticket to the ticket collector, Oven exchanged the kind of meaningless pleasantries that would take place between a ticket collector and the successful businessman he appeared to be, then, sitting back, he watched the French countryside as the train moved rapidly north through the green of the Rhone Valley. Estimating, he judged they were traveling in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty miles per hour.
It was just as well he’d taken care of the women where he had. If somehow they’d eluded him and gotten home, well, hysterical people were always cumbersome targets. And the sight of Marianne’s husband and five children shot to death in their own apartment, no matter how neatly he’d done it, would most certainly have sent both women over the edge, bringing the neighbors and anyone else within earshot.
Of course the husband and children would be found, if they hadn’t been already,